What Drivers Need to Know about the White Cane Law

Did you know if you violate this law you could end up with a fine, in jail, or even worse?

October is Blindness Awareness Month, and October 15 is White Cane Safety Awareness Day. All 50 states have some form of White Cane Law, but the information I share is specific to Tennessee. What follows is an article I wrote for the local newspaper in my ongoing commitment to educate the public and the visually impaired about issues related to vision loss.

What Drivers Need to Know about The White Cane Law

Maybe you’ve seen me walking downtown and wondered why I’m using a white cane with a red section at the bottom. After all, I don’t appear to be blind. I walk quickly and seem to move along without too much assistance from the cane. But there’s a reason I use it.

And maybe you’ve been one of the few drivers to stop for me when I’m waiting to cross the street. If so, you were obeying the law. If not, you were breaking it.

October is Blindness Awareness Month, with October 15 being National White Cane Safety  Day, and while you may think blindness has nothing to do with you, it does if you drive. As a matter of fact, deafness is another factor to consider. The White Cane Law (55-8-180) was passed in Tennessee to protect blind or visually impaired pedestrians. The Driver’s Manual explains it as follows: When a blind or visually impaired pedestrian using a guide dog or carrying a cane, which is white in color or white with red tip, or a hearing impaired person with a dog on a blaze orange leash is crossing any portion of the roadway, even if not at an intersection or a crosswalk, take special precautions as may be necessary to avoid accident or injury to the pedestrian. Stop at least 10 feet away until the person is off the roadway. Do not use your horn, as it could startle the blind pedestrian.

Notice the terminology used is “blind or visually impaired.” Only ten to 15 percent of people considered to be blind have no light perception at all. The other 85 to 90 percent have some light perception and often some functional vision. I fall in that category.

When I became legally blind over five years ago due to a rare condition similar to age-related macular degeneration, I began searching for ways to live a life as independent and normal as possible. The inability to drive meant I was confined to my home or neighborhood while my husband was at work, and for an otherwise healthy, active, and sociable person like me, that was not acceptable. While friends often offered rides to events and offered to take me to stores, I hated asking them to do so and limited myself to accepting rides if they were going anyway. I did not want anyone making a special trip for me, and there was no way I was going to text someone and ask them to take me somewhere. The Northwest Tennessee Transportation service was an option I used occasionally, but you had to schedule your trips at least a week in advance, and because of the driver shortage, I was limited on what days of the week I could use the service for personal reasons.

I received technology training and cane training from The STAR Center in Jackson, and that meant when the weather was all right to do so, I could walk downtown and go to the library, restaurants, the bank, and shops.

But the white cane with the red tip that I use as an identification cane is not always the magic wand that stops traffic. More often than not, cars do not stop for me at crosswalks, and I am limited in where I can walk as I fear crossing University Street because I have no idea if the sign across the way says it’s safe to cross. It’s possible there is a way to have it announced to me, but even so, I’m not comfortable crossing heavily traveled roadways.

I can see cars when they’re about ten yards away from me, but because they are traveling faster than someone walking, they reach where I am standing in seconds. I listen for cars and can tell if they’re leaving or approaching. I can tell when they’ve stopped. At that point, I’m brave enough to step into the crosswalk and cross the street.

An acquaintance of mine in the VIP (visually impaired persons) community lives in near Nashville, Tennessee. She attended a week-long residential program to learn how to walk using a cane with confidence in a city setting. When she returned, she was excited about her new skill and was anxious to show her husband what she had learned. But when they began to cross a busy four-lane, a vehicle turning left almost hit her.

The ironic part of this? It was a police officer.

Her confidence shattered, she called the police chief and told him what happened. He addressed the issue immediately by implementing training with his staff regarding the law.

Failing to stop for a pedestrian as described above is a Class C Misdemeanor, and drivers may be fined or even put in jail, depending on the seriousness of the violation.

It’s possible I’m the only person in our town using the white cane, and it may be no one in our town uses a guide dog. It may be that others who are hearing impaired or visually impaired have no desire to venture out on their own. But I have a feeling there are other independent, active types like me who want to live as normal a life as possible without fear of being hit by a vehicle.

So, the next time you see someone with a white cane, a guide dog, or a dog with a blaze orange leash waiting to cross the street, stop. Not only is it the law, it’s the respectful thing to do.